I don’t hide the fact that I am a big fan of Stephen Colbert. He seems to be more talented than Jon Stewart and I also believe that he has more variety in his comedy than Steve Carrell, to whom Colbert was an understudy.
In case you don’t know, here’s the summary of what happened:
In 2007, Rain made it to People’s Most Beautiful People list for the first time, in its “First-Time Beauties 2007″ section. In a press release, Rain stated that he was honored to be on the list, and also noted that it will be a great boon to his efforts to raise his public awareness in the United States. Also in 2007, Rain topped Time’s open online poll; however, many believe he was voted in by over-zealous fans that voted others down. As a result, he beat Stephen Colbert by 100,000 votes; Colbert jokingly retaliated by producing a parody of Rain’s music video for “Ways to Avoid the Sun”. The singer was not included in the magazine’s actual list.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_%28singer%29
Korean media reacted badly, quoting from sources calling Colbert to be a racist.
This is an outrage. What Colbert did (videos are available on-line, I will not link it here) was simply a satire. I wonder what would happen if Chris Rock was actually a Korean! I know, setting Chris Rock as limit of comedy is hardly responsible, but people are forgetting few things.
1. Stephen Colbert is in CHARACTER in his show.
2. EVEN IF HE WAS NOT IN CHARACTER, the comedy can be considered perfectly sensitive.
3. Colbert has never crossed the line in terms of tolerance.
I find this bit sad because this shows that Korean public is not yet ready to adapt to a global setting. I know that Koreans were hardly aware of what Colbert actually does, but South Korea is widely considered one of top economies of the world. Taking Colbert’s satire as racism is too naïve at that level, I feel.
I waited a long time for Colbert to react to this and he did so in good manner today. Even Bill O’Reilly was fine with Colbert taking his microwave – why does Korean media always react badly to these things?
I always knew that a big chunk of Korean media (especially print) was just full of illiterate, anti-journalistic people, but this one disappointed me even more.
